"These clowns are giving the industry a bad name," City Councilman James Kenney said.
Kenney has been trying to stop renegade tow operators for years.
Tow operators are supposed to be assigned to accidents on a rotational basis by the police. Instead, these rouge tow truck drivers listen to police radios and then scramble to be first on the scene to claim the job.
"They hear the dispatch and they go off to the races, putting pedestrians in harm, putting other drivers in harm, and putting the general public in harm, I've seen them ride on pavements to get to a scene," Kenney said.
AAA Mid-Atlantic is urging the police to enforce the rotational system that was made law two and a half years ago.
They say wreck chasers put the public in danger and take advantage of accident victims.
"These wreck chasers charge an exorbitant amount of fees to motorists who are in this situation," Jana Tidwell of Mid-Atlantic AAA said.
It was the same complaint heard when Action News exposed the problem in a special investigation 14 years ago.
Then, as now, accident victims were at the mercy of whoever showed up on the scene first.
"Reds," a tow operator for 20 years, says the business has done a good job of policing itself since that 1996 Action News investigation.
"It's a high level of competition. It is pretty cutthroat out there, but there's not a level of violence like they're painting it to be. I mean, it's competitive, if somebody can take a job off of you or you can take it off them, that happens," "Reds" of Siani's Towing said.
Councilman Kenny was behind the bill that mandated the rotation system.
He now admits it was flawed because it put the onus on the responding police officer to call the next tow truck in line.
Kenney will be introducing a new bill in September to correct that flaw.
"The call for the rotation tower should be made by the dispatcher at 911 headquarters simultaneous to the police officer being dispatched," Kenney said.
Until the new law is in place, Kenney is warning accident victims that they should never sign anything a tow truck operator presents at the scene. He says you are basically signing away your consumer rights and your car will be held hostage for outrageous fees.
